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Many African economies are booming. South Africa’s is not. Europe, its biggest export market, is mired in recession. Mining output fell in February and again in March. Consumer confidence is at a nine-year low. Massmart, part-owned by Walmart, this week became the latest big retailer to report disappointing sales figures. Unemployment is above 25%. If those who want work but are too discouraged to look for it are included, the rate is close to 37%.

In such circumstances, a cut in interest rates might ginger up the economy. But South Africa’s central bank kept its benchmark rate at 5% on May 23rd, in part because of an alarming decline in the rand in recent weeks. The weaker currency will push up import costs and boost inflation which is already close to the top of the target range of 3%-6%. The rand’s slide is part of a general sell-off in emerging-market currencies against the dollar, but few have fallen as hard. And there are concerns that the foreign investment that South Africa needs to finance its large current-account deficit is being scared off by a fresh bout of industrial strife.

Wage demands seem destined to be unmet. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called for pay rises of up to 60%, just as gold and platinum prices are falling. NUMSA, the metal-workers union, wants a 20% pay increase for all its members. Wildcat strikes recently hit Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, where dozens of striking workers were killed by police last August. The threat of unrest goes beyond the mines. “If no agreement is reached, workers will have no choice but to go to the streets,” warned Mphumzi Maqungo, NUMSA’s national treasurer.

Such demands are not consistent with a 6% inflation cap nor with stable employment. Gill Marcus, the central-bank governor, warned that “the risk of a wage-price spiral remains high”. The wonder is that unions can ask for such pay deals when so many people are out of work. But the unemployed in South Africa cannot price themselves into work because of strict job-protection laws. The workforce is divided between privileged “insiders” and mostly young “outsiders”. As in the bits of Europe with hard-to-fire workers and high unemployment rates, those in work have many out-of-work dependents to support, so feel justified in their wage demands.

This year’s claims have been given an extra boost because unions are in a battle for relevancy. The NUM has been displaced in Marikana’s mines by AMCU, an upstart which now has the majority of Lonmin’s platinum workers in its ranks. The NUM is affiliated with COSATU, a union federation with close ties to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Members who deserted felt its officials were too cosy with the powers-that-be, including employers. What better way to retain its rank-and-file support—and win lost members back—than an eye-watering pay bid?

But as the slide in the rand continued, the ANC leadership started to worry out loud. “If we do not resolve our labour-relations challenges, we will all be losers, we will see deteriorating confidence, job losses and business failures,” the finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, told parliament. It was a statement with which no one could disagree, but which also did not call on anybody to resolve the problem. Typically, President Jacob Zuma outdid him in his criticism of nobody in particular (and certainly not the unions): “We should demand better salaries and working conditions, but we may not wreck the economy.” With such vague guidance, industrial peace is unlikely to break out soon.

According to a recent survey, here are the top 10 reasons organizations hire consultants:

1. A consultant may be hired because of his or her expertise. This is where it pays to not only be really good in the field you have chosen to consult in, but to have some type of track record that speaks for itself. For example, when I mentioned earlier that I had become an expert as a fund-raising consultant, I knew that every client who hired me was doing so partly on the basis of my track record alone. After all, if you are a nonprofit organization that needs to raise $1 million, it makes sense to hire someone who has already raised millions for other organizations.

2. A consultant may be hired to identify problems. Sometimes employees are too close to a problem inside an organization to identify it. That’s when a consultant rides in on his or her white horse to save the day.

3. A consultant may be hired to supplement the staff. Sometimes a business discovers that it can save thousands of dollars a week by hiring consultants when they are needed, rather than hiring full-time employees. Businesses realize they save additional money by not having to pay benefits for consultants they hire. Even though a consultant’s fees are generally higher than an employee’s salary, over the long haul, it simply makes good economic sense to hire a consultant.

4. A consultant may be hired to act as a catalyst. Let’s face it. No one likes change, especially corporate America. But sometimes change is needed, and a consultant may be brought in to “get the ball rolling.” In other words, the consultant can do things without worrying about the corporate culture, employee morale or other issues that get in the way when an organization is trying to institute change.

5. A consultant may be hired to provide much-needed objectivity.Who else is more qualified to identify a problem than a consultant? A good consultant provides an objective, fresh viewpoint–without worrying about what people in the organization might think about the results and how they were achieved.

6. A consultant may be hired to teach. These days if you are a computer consultant who can show employees how to master a new program, then your telephone probably hasn’t stopped ringing for a while. A consultant may be asked to teach employees any number of different skills. However, a consultant must be willing to keep up with new discoveries in their field of expertise–and be ready to teach new clients what they need to stay competitive.

7. A consultant may be hired to do the “dirty work.” Let’s face it: No one wants to be the person who has to make cuts in the staff or to eliminate an entire division.

8. A consultant may be hired to bring new life to an organization. If you are good at coming up with new ideas that work, then you won’t have any trouble finding clients. At one time or another, most businesses need someone to administer “first aid” to get things rolling again.

9. A consultant may be hired to create a new business. There are consultants who have become experts in this field. Not everyone, though, has the ability to conceive an idea and develop a game plan.

10. A consultant may be hired to influence other people. Do you like to hang out with the rich and famous in your town? If so, you may be hired to do a consulting job simply based on who you know. Although most consultants in this field are working as lobbyists, there has been an increase in the number of people entering the entertainment consulting business.

Nigerians, yesterday, discovered the surprising news that the size of their economy haddoubled overnight, making it the largest economy in Africa and the 26th-largest in the world. It took the biggest-in-Africa crown away from South Africa, which still has a much larger GDP per capita.

Nigeria hadn’t calculated its GDP since 1990, and the new number takes into account a swath of new industries for the country, including telecommunications and the booming Nollywood film industry.

This isn’t the first time this has happened in Africa in recent years. After a similar recalculation in 2010, the size of Ghana’s economy “grew” by 60 percent, catapulting it into the World Bank’s middle-income bracket.

Given that these countries seem to have had entire sectors of the economy they were leaving off their books, it certainly raises some questions about other GDP figures we see reported on a regular basis.

The unreliability of African economic statistics was the topic of a book last year by Simon Fraser University economist Morten Jerven. Jerven argues that GDP “is the most widely used measure of economic activity, yet little is known about how this metric is produced and misused in debates about African economic development.”

On the other hand, as my old colleague Uri Friedman asks, “Are we too obsessed with GDP as a measure of countries’ economic strength and health?”

As Chris Blattman put it last year, policymakers are hung up on the reliability of statistics because they “want the world nicely ordered with levers to pull and a dashboard to monitor.” Improving the numbers we have would be great, but most countries have more pressing concerns.

Statistics announced that after “rebasing,” Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) almost doubled to U.S. $509.9 billion. That figure is dramatically larger than South Africa’s 2013 GDP of $370.3 billion, and bestows on Nigeria the bragging rights of being the largest economy in Africa.

South Africa’s GDP numbers are three times larger than Nigeria’s on a per capita basis. South Africa has a diverse, modern economy, while Nigeria remains heavily dependent on oil, despite a proliferation of cell phones and other telecommunication technologies, and a large and dynamic film industry. Further, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim included Nigeria with India, China, Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the countries with the largest number of people living in “extreme poverty,” defined as less than $1.25 per day. He went on to say that if you add to those five countries Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Kenya, those ten countries together account for 80 percent of the world’s total “extreme poor.”

According to the Premium Times, many economists believe that 70 percent of Nigeria’s population lives in “extreme poverty.” “Rebasing” does nothing to change this reality.

In light of work by Morten Jerven and others on the limitations of African statistics, it is uncertain whether Nigeria’s new GDP statistics describe economic reality.

This announcement is a matter of politics, not economics. The claim of being Africa’s largest economy could bolster Nigeria’s chances of joining the G-20; at present, South Africa is the only African country in the club. But, if Nigeria joins, does South Africa leave? It might also strengthen Nigeria’s claim to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, if and when Security Council enlargement becomes anything more than a hypothetical question. And what about the BRICS (the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)? South Africa’s membership was predicated on being Africa’s “largest economy.” Will Nigeria displace South Africa, or join South Africa?

It has been a rough past few weeks for Nigeria, with Boko Haram attacks at Giwa Barracks (Maiduguri) and within the headquarters of the State Security Service in Abuja. Violence involving “Fulani herdsmen” continues, and politics looking toward the scheduled 2015 elections are in turmoil. It is widely expected that President Goodluck Jonathan will seek re-election, though he has still made no announcement of his intentions. Presuming he does, he and his Peoples’ Democratic Party will almost certainly claim credit for Nigeria’s economic growth—if not for the remaining poverty of most of its citizens.

South Africa was Africa’s largest economy. The IMF put its GDP at $354 billion last year, well ahead of its closest rival for the crown, Nigeria. By Sunday afternoon that had changed. Nigeria’s statistician-general announced that his country’s GDP for 2013 had been revised from 42.4 trillion naira to 80.2 trillion naira ($509 billion). The estimated income of the average indi went from less than $1,500 a year to $2,688 in a trice. How can an economy grow by almost 90% overnight?

Nigeria has a deserved reputation for corruption, so a sceptic might think the doubling of its economy a result of fiddling the numbers. In fact it is the old numbers that are dodgy. An economy’s real growth rate is typically measured by reference to prices in a base year. In Nigeria the reference year for the old estimate of GDP was 1990. The IMF recommends that base years be updated at least every five years. Nigeria left it far too long; as a result, its old GDP figures were hopelessly inaccurate.

The new figures use 2010 as the base year. Why was the upgrade so big? To come up with an estimate of GDP, statisticians need to add together estimates of output from a sample of businesses in every part of the economy, from farming to service industries. The weight they give to each sector depends on its importance to the economy in the base year. A snapshot of Nigeria’s economy in 1990 gave little or no weight to fast-growing parts of the economy such as mobile telephony or the movie industry. At the time the state-owned telephone company had a few hundred thousand customers.

Today the country has 120m mobile-phone subscriptions. On the old 1990 figures, the telecoms sector was less than 1% of GDP; it is now almost 9% of GDP. Motion pictures had not shown up at all in the old figures, but the industry’s size is now put at 1.4% of GDP. Nigeria’s number-crunchers have improved the gathering of statistics in other ways. The old GDP figures were based on an estimate of output.

The new figures are cross-checked against separate surveys of spending and income. The sample on which the data are based has increased from around 85,000 establishments to 850,000. Only businesses with a fixed location are included: the traders who weave precariously between the traffic are not captured. Even so, many small businesses are now part of the GDP picture.

Nigeria is the largest economy in West Africa and the second largest in Africa, after South Africa. Work prospects for highly skilled expats are good, with opportunities available in a variety of sectors. Nevertheless, despite its wealth, Nigeria remains somewhat of a hardship destination, and expats working in Nigeria will most likely find themselves embittered by the daily struggle, despite the country’s continued efforts at reform within the business world.

This West African country experienced economic liberalisation in 1995 and has had a more open system available to foreign investors since then. There has certainly been a strong push to evolve business practices and to entice more skilled labourers to Nigeria; but as most expats working in Nigeria will admit, there’s much improvement still to be had in the business environment.

Nigeria is notoriously associated with scams that pivot around job offers. For this reason, expats offered a position in Nigeria should confirm that the employer is legitimate by consulting with their local Nigerian Embassy, and by attempting to contact expats on the ground.

Corruption is also commonplace in Nigeria, and it’s likely that expats working in Nigeria will be exposed to this at one point or another, particularly when negotiating business deals or even jockeying for work contracts. Connections with ministers and government officials are all-important and readily dictate levels of success or failure.

With over 250 different ethnic groups and a multitude of foreign-owned multinational companies, expats working in Nigeria will find themselves in a very diverse, and mostly welcoming, business environment.

However, adjusting to working life here may require a great deal of flexibility and patience, especially when it comes to dealing with local counterparts. It won’t be long before expats working in Nigeria find themselves a victim of the workforce policy on punctuality, “Hurry Up and Wait”. The country very much functions at a relaxed pace, even when it comes to doing business, meaning that a meeting scheduled for 10am may very well only happen at 3pm, if at all. Prepare accordingly and learn to be as flexible as possible.

Is yellow fever vaccination required?

All visitors travelling from India to Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Mali, Ghana and Ethiopia are required to be vaccinated against yellow fever with an international certificate proving so.

While there is no health check on departure from India, you will be checked upon your return. Thus, it is mandatory to be in possession of a valid international vaccination certificate of yellow fever before your departure. This certificate must be issued from an approved vaccination center.

Visitors travelling directly from India to South Africa or Zimbabwe do NOT need a yellow fever vaccination. However, any person entering South Africa or Zimbabwe from an infected area or having been in transit through infected areas must be in possession of a valid International Certificate of Vaccination against Yellow Fever.

When should I get the vaccination?

The yellow fever vaccination needs to be given at least ten days before arriving in a yellow-fever-endemic area and must be administered at an approved yellow fever vaccination center.

What documents are required?

To get an valid certification of yellow fever vaccination, you are required to bring your original passport and your international travel tickets. It is also recommended to have Rs 300 in change (cost of vaccination at govt. institutes).

What time should I show up for the vaccination?

Most public health centres open at 9 am, Monday – Friday. However, there is a limited quota of vaccinations issued everyday (less than 100 usually). Thus, it is recommended to show up earlier in order to be ahead in the line.

How long is the yellow fever vaccine valid for?

The yellow fever vaccination certificate is valid for ten years, after which a booster shot is recommended.

Can I be exempted from producing a vaccination certificate?

The under mentioned persons are exempted from production yellow fever vaccination certificate:

Infants below the age of six months.

Any person suffering from some chronic illness and has poor resistance and is thereby exempted from being vaccinated.

Crew and passengers of an aircraft transiting through an airport located in yellow fever infected area provided the Health Officer is satisfied that such persons remained within the airport premises during the period of stay.

What are the re-entry requirements by the Ministry of Health?

The Ministry of Health, Government of India, has issued an advisory for passengers coming/returning to India from yellow fever endemic countries. Please read the full advisory here:

List of countries listed as YF endemic according to WHO

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, follows this list.

the coastal states of Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique border on nine of Africa’s 16 landlocked countries. With the external trade of so many states concentrated through so few, this littoral stretch has long represented a concentration of culture and economic activity, clearly evident in what is known as the Swahili Coast. With these economies now showing near-universal growth, and East Africa representing the most natural shipping gateway to the mineral-hungry Asian markets, competition between its ports is intensifying.

East Africa’s ports infrastructure is a fraction of what it could be. The 15 states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are home to six ports capable of handling over 300,000 twenty-foot containers (TEU) per year. The five coastal countries stretching from Djibouti to Mozambique and all the landlocked countries they could potentially serve are home to just three. “When it comes to mining for all of the land-locked countries, the ports are the biggest bottleneck,” said Deanne De Vries, vice president for Africa at Agility Logistics.

Yet the past few years have seen the announcement of transportation infrastructure investments that overshadow those of any other global region. $17 billion of transportation projects are in the pipeline in Mozambique. Kenya’s Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor is forecast to cost $25.5 billion, in addition to upgrades at Mombasa Port and a $13 billion regional railway project. Tanzania has proposed ports and transport corridors representing investments of over $40 billion, in addition to upgrades at Dar es Salaam Port and elsewhere.

These investments are good news for companies operating in the region: especially the mining sector, in which the viability of a mine can often depend on its export routes. Yet they are also leading to a shift in regional trade routes that companies should be aware of. With South Africa, home to the continent’s largest and busiest port Durban, anchoring the southern end of Africa’s eastern seaboard Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique are looking to increase market share from their western and southern neighbours, bring them into competition with each other.

Mozambique Seeks Botswana’s Coal

In Mozambique the government has invited bids for a $2 billion 525 km railway that will link the coal fields of the Moatize Basin to a new port at Macuse and announced plans for a new $7 billion deepwater port at Technobanine. Expansion work is also underway in the ports of Maputo, Beira and Nacala, the three largest of Mozambique’s seven main seaports.

In addition to increasing physical infrastructure, strong efforts are being made to increase efficiency. In partnership with its port operators, Mozambique has implemented Janela Único Electrónica (JUE), an online, electronic port processing system. “The establishment of the JUE has lead to at least a 50% improvement in efficiency at the ports. The system as a whole has now stabilised, it increases the speed which documentation is finished therefore speeding up the whole system. All three major ports in Mozambique can now be considered efficient and much credit should go to the operators DP World, MPDC, Cornelder and Portos do Norte. However, since the recent unrest companies have been reluctant to transport goods by road and we have seen some backlog at the ports as a result. Particularly in the case of Beira, which acts as the transit port for Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and, to a lesser extent, Botswana. In general the ports system in Mozambique has improved vastly over the past year,” explained Karen de Almeida, general manager – finance and administration for UTi.

Mozambique has much work to do before its infrastructure is global best practice standards. Container dwell time at its ports still average far higher than those of its northern peers; let alone South Africa. Upgrades on the Sena line, connecting the Tete province to the Beira seaport, will increase capacity from 3 million mt/y to 6.5 million mt/y, yet this more-than-doubling still falls well below the total capacity of the Tete province, which at maturity is estimated will reach 100 million mt/y. The African Union, in a study done for the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, estimated that even with currently planned port and terminal expansion, Mozambique will still suffer from short-term port container capacity gaps by 2020.

These worries have not stopped Mozambique seeking to serve as the trade route for their neighbouring countries in the region. Its Nacala Railroad, being expanded by Vale, connects to the Central East African Railway of Malawi. The Beira Railroad connects to Harare in Zimbabwe and the Maputo Railroad connects to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

One of the largest competitions being played out at the moment is for the coal of Botswana. In August the Mozambican Minister of Mineral Resources invited his Batswana counterpart and the Batswana Minister of Transport and Communications to discuss the export of coal and acquisition of fuel through Mozambique. “Evaluations are currently being made to decide if existing railway lines between Mozambique and Botswana should be refurbished, which would better connect the country to the ports of Maputo and Matola,” explains the Honourable Onkokame Kitso Mokaila, Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources of the Republic of Botswana.

Yet Walvis Bay of Namibia is also hoping to secure Botswana trade, as well as that of other landlocked countries, and can at the moment boast shorter transit times. “As a relatively new port, we cannot compete on volumes with Durban at this stage but we can reduce the cost of doing business in southern Africa. Walvis Bay has five competitive advantages: Namibia is safe, it is secure, is it easy to do business in, our transit times are much better than the rest of southern Africa, and we are efficient along the complete corridor” suggest Johny Smith, CEO of the Walvis Bay Corridor Group. “Namibia has a coastline of 1,500 km and Walvis Bay is very strategically located. Walvis Bay can cover southern Angola, Zambia, southern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Botswana, and also parts of South Africa.”

While the need to support its own mining industry will restrict, though not stop, Mozambique’s regional transport corridor ambitions in the medium-term, they will nonetheless also restrict any attempt by Tanzania to increase its regional influence southward. Like Mozambique, Tanzania is not free from port problems. “There are long delays at the Port of Dar es Salaam, which we know the authorities are working hard to rectify. In the meantime Minesite Tanzania is using the Port of Mombasa to ensure zero loss of production and downtime for our end users,” said Damien Valente, country manager for Minesite Tanzania, a mining service provider based out gold-mining hotbed Mwanza.

Michael Page– With more than 35 years of experience, Michael Page International is one of the world’s leading recruitment businesses. Complete with its uncommonly personalized service, an iPhone app and a full corporate social responsibility programme, this is truly a recruitment agency for the 21st century. From accounting to secretarial, Michael Page works with a huge diversity of clients to source permanent, contract, temp and interim talent in practically every sector imaginable.

Reed– Reed not only has offices nationwide, but also offers a jobsite that allows you to browse a huge variety of vacancies. The site is broken down into 42 specialist sector-specific sites and you can also browse international jobs, jobs starting right away, and 50k+ jobs.

Blue Arrow– One of the largest recruitment business in the UK, Blue Arrow also has branches throughout mainland Britain. Once you’re registered with them, if they find a vacancy they think is more suited to you than the ones you’ve been applying for, they’ll let you know.

Hays– Hays has a worldwide presence and its UK network includes a dedicated Northern Ireland website, as well as offices in Belfast, Newry, Derry and Portadown. The Hays UK website has a career advice section covering CVs, interviews, job offers, and situation change.

Ross Warner HR solutions:-Ross Warner HR Solutions (Formerly known as Kosmic Rays HR Solutions).[An ISO 9001:2008 certified company and an privileged member of ERA] is one of the leading HR Recruitment Solution company in Mumbai (India ) ServingClients In Africa and India backed by more than 50 man years experience

Office Angels– An agency specialising in secretarial and office support staff and vacancies, Office Angels is the UK’s leading recruitment business in the sector. As well as a network of 80 offices, Office Angels has a website that offers a “virtual branch” and career tips, amongst other things.

Bond Recruitment– Bond is a multi-sector recruitment specialist that covers fields ranging from architecture to languages, leisure to electronic security & fire. All consultants are specialists within their particular sectors and match you with roles according to your skills and personality.

Adecco Recruitment– Working across a number of sectors, Adecco places candidates in roles in the fields of Finance, IT, Admin and Sales, amongst others. The business has branches nationwide and its website offers a vacancy search, career tips, Microsoft Learning Kits and more.

ACME Appointments– This recruitment consultancy has been placing candidates for more than 55 years. The sectors it operates in include property, office support, marketing and accountancy. Its offices in Central London are easy to find and reach from any point in the city.

Tate– Tate specialises in office jobs, allowing you to browse their website for vacancies by location. Established in 1985, the company has 27 offices across the UK. Its website includes downloadable guides and reports, a blog, and a newsroom.

Mining in Angola

Mining in Angola has only explored 40% of the country’s estimated diamond
resources – suggesting that future growth in the industry is inevitable. As Africa’s
second-largest diamond producer at 8 million carats in 2009 – after Botswana with
32 million carats in the same year – the former Portuguese colony is considered a vital link in the global diamond industry and trade.

Diamond Mining in Angola

Mining in Angola is an activity with great economic
potential since the country has one of the largest
and most diversified mining resources of Africa

Alluvial diamond mining in Angola became popular in 1912 after the discovery of the precious stones embedded in river banks, shorelines and sea floors. Mining in Angola began to develop significantly in 1952 when formalised diamond mining companies, including De Beers, established large-scale mining operations. Diamond mining in Angola has successfully surpassed the contribution of iron ore mining in Angola to the country’s GDP.

Mining IQ lists other resources mining in Angola depends on to include iron ore, manganese, copper, phosphates, granite, and many others, but the country depends on diamond mining to help rebuild the economy after the end of a long-lasting civil war in 2002.

Mining IQ lists the Cassanguidi diamond mine as Angola’s largest operational diamond project. The mine features a capital value of ZAR200 million and is located in the Lunda Norte Province.

With figures and statistics like these readily available on Mining IQ, mining in Angolacan be thoroughly investigated by companies and individuals wishing to become involved. Mining IQ’s online information service helps to determine future trends in, as an example, mining in Angola, and is an essential tool for getting ahead in the African mining industry overall.